Collierville High School Team Captures Second Place in District ''''Fed Challenge

ST. LOUIS — A team of students from Collierville High School captured second place in the Federal Reserve's Eighth District "Fed Challenge," an economics competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The students who represented Collierville are Stavya Tumuluru, Bo Zhang, Alex Marshall, Ricardo Mosqueda, Laurae Hicks and Chad Magee (alternate). The team's teacher is Carla Plunkett.

First place went to Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

Each team in the Fed Challenge makes a 15-minute presentation, based on their research, before a panel of judges at a mock meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve's policymaking body. Team members also have to answer the judges' questions about their research and the Federal Reserve.

The judges for the District competition in St. Louis were Robert H. Rasche, senior vice president and director of research for the St. Louis Fed; Dr. Timothy McBride, professor of health management and policy at Saint Louis University; and Bryan Bezold, chief economist for the Regional Chamber & Growth Association of St. Louis.

With branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis serves the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes all of Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. The St. Louis Fed is one of 12 regional Reserve banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., comprise the Federal Reserve System. As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve System formulates U.S. monetary policy, regulates state-chartered member banks and bank holding companies, and provides payment services to financial institutions and the U.S. government.

# # #